StubStarter
DRAFT - Introduction StubStarter is Dayton Diode's process for allocating discretionary funds. Think of it as a tiny version of KickStarter, only instead of pledging dollars, members pledge support which translates into funds from the discretionary portion of the Dayton Diode budget. StubStarter is based on a process Dayton Diode members heard about from Cincinnati's makerspace Hive13. Background The basic idea behind StubStarter is proposed projects go onto a list of projects to fund (with membership approval), and each month, the available discretionary income is allocated proportionately to projects based on a "beauty contest" held during the monthly business meeting. When projects have earned enough money to be fully funded through this allocation process, the treasurer is authorized to pay for them and members are authorized to start them. With this in mind, the monthly process needs to provide a clear and concise means of implementing the following tasks. *Determining and reporting the discretionary income to be allocated to projects *Adding projects to the list of proposed projects *Running the "beauty contest" The monthly process The monthly process for StubStarter will take place during the treasurer's report and will be a fixed part of each month's meeting agenda. The process works as follows. *Treasurer gives traditional treasurer's report (bank balance, financial activity, number of members, etc) *Treasurer reports the discretionary income to allocate **discretionary income = previous month's total income - previous month's total expenses **previous month's values are used to avoid the need to make projections on income or expenses **discretionary income = $0.00 whenever the current bank balance is below 3 months projected expenses as defined in the current year's budget *Projects are added to the proposed project list **the proposed project list is made up of two parts: the Parking Lot and the Active List **the Parking Lot is the final section of this wiki page and is used to capture project ideas which do not have an estimated cost or which the members wish to discuss before approving **the Active List (editable link) is a Google Drive spreadsheet which the Dayton Diode officers have write access to and is used to track the allocation of discretionary funds to projects over time **the facilitator goes once around the room asking for new project ideas, ***if a member has a project idea, they may make a very brief pitch for it ***if the project idea includes a complete estimate for its cost and there are no objections, it is added to the Active List ***if the project does not have a complete estimate for its cost or there are concerns about the project, then it is added to the Parking Lot (any project ideas with concerns that are added to the Parking Lot should include the concerns being raised and should be added to the agenda of an upcoming meeting to work through the concerns) ***if a project was previously lists in the Parking Lot and now has a complete estimate for its cost it is added to the Active List *Running the "beauty contest" **Once the Active List has been updated, it is time to run the "beauty contest" **Each member gets three "votes" which they can allocate in any arrangement (1 in each of three different projects, 1 in one and 2 in another, or all three in the same project) **An officer opens the Active List document (if it is not already open) and resets the monthly values ***Discretionary Funds - this is the value reports by the treasurer earlier in the meeting ***Number of Members - this is number of members present at the meeting (must be present to vote) ***The number of votes for each project **The faciliator reads through the list of projects in the Active List and asks for votes (0,1,2, or 3 from each member) ***The officer records the number of votes for each project ***Members are expected to keep track of their own votes to ensure they only provide three votes ***Voting continues until either the Active List has been reviewed in its entirety or all members have spent all of their votes **The officer then adds the value for the New Funds column to the Total Allocated Funds column for each project **Any project which reaches its cost is funded Parking Lot *CNC Laser Cutter (JM 12/10/2013) *#Lots of options, but the biggest factor I think is what size work envelope do we need? *Projector - Preferably 1080p *Radio Spectrum Poster - Rick *Couch Project - Max *3D Printer Build - Ken's Ultimaker Clone - $525 *CNC Router Power